Life Coach: Spirit, Body and Mind » Italy

Musings: Dealing With My Frustration

Margo — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 19:04:03 +0000

I know that talking things through with someone helps to diminish the hold that anything that is frustrating me or causing me anger or resentment has on me. Writing also helps in the same way. So here goes. Whether I’ll be able to post is another matter, and that’s where my present frustration is coming from.

I haven’t written in a while. I’ve given up trying to understand why this happens. It’s not that I have nothing to write about. I have been keeping, and adding to, a small list of topics that I want to express my feelings about. But something is getting in the way. The weather has been gorgeous lately. We have been enjoying the best Florida spring weather – no grey, no de-pressing stuff going on outside, so that’s not the issue.

Now that I think about it, maybe there is still an issue connected to the weather that’s been keeping me from writing, but it’s the reverse of dealing with the de-pressing grey. It’s been so perfectly beautiful outside of late that I have been called into the garden and have struggled to balance my time outside with all the other things that I want/am committed to do.

It has been really amazing to watch the garden come to life after the long cold winter. It seems as though with each passing year I become more aware of the transformation that takes place as plants come back to life, buds appear, then full foliage and flowers blossom out. The Confederate Jasmine, that I planted as two very small 20-inch tall plants at the base of the front supporting columns of my old gazebo two years ago, has now grown into thick, lush greenery that covers both 8-foot tall columns and trails upwards onto two of the roof supports and is also quite thick as it meets across the front horizontal bar. It is also full of flowers which I hope will last so that I can see them and enjoy them when I return from this trip.

And therein lies another source of frustration. I have been travelling on and off since 28 March. Being out of my normal habitat and routine is always somewhat disconcerting and disruptive, and I haven’t yet learned to handle that with total grace and acceptance. I drove up to Newport News, VA back then to spend a few days with my son who was there from Italy to attend a work related conference. It was a gift that I had no intention of passing up. We had a great three days hanging out together. On the way home from there, I was then able to stop in Fayetteville, NC to spend an afternoon and night-over with my dear sister-friend LeeAnn. She and I never waste time on pleasantries, diving deep into our sharing from the heart and soul which allows us to broaden, deepen, and strengthen our relationship on all levels, especially the spiritual level. Another enormous gift for which I am truly grateful.

Arriving back in Florida after that trip, I had three days to catch-up (I always say that with tongue in cheek because, how on earth do you catch up with time that has already passed??). So it was a flurry of unpacking and keeping up with some commitments that were on my calendar, before I then had to pack for the trip that I am presently “enjoying” ( barring bad internet connections – grrrrrr!) with my husband.

And therein lies the ultimate frustration. Yesterday evening I had the first real longing, desire, to do some creative writing. I sat down eagerly in front of my computer and – nothing. I don’t mean nothing would come out on the page. I mean nothing would come up on the computer. No worries, I have my resident computer technician travelling with me, no? But after checking things out he told me that there was nothing he could do. There simply was no internet connection and he had no control over that. Talk abut frustration!!!

As well as the creative writing I felt called to do, I also had a bunch of emails I wanted to send out, and there were several things that I wanted to check out on Google. I was stuck. Couldn’t do a thing. So I called it a day and picked up a book and decided to read. But the frustration was there, bubbling under the surface and even though I checked in with God and asked for inner peace, I guess I was wanting to hang onto the frustration and wallow in it for a bit because it was still there this morning, and so was the lack of connectivity!!!!!!!.

Rich has struggled all morning to give me some connection, but it has been been frustrating for him too. Right now I have no idea if I have connection or not, but I did learn (thank God I can always learn something), that I can at least access my Live Writer programme and get the words out and down, and in doing so I have released some of the frustration. Whether I will be able to post my writing is another matter, but at least it’s ready to go if and when we get a connection.

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Self Nurturing: Changing Lifestyle

Margo — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 02:53:35 +0000

About six weeks ago in my posting Going Raw- Part One, I wrote about the process I am going through to change from eating cooked foods to eating raw foods. This is all part of a bigger process that I have embarked upon in order to get as healthy as I can. The food area of my life is probably the last major bastion that I am attempting to overcome and, because it has its roots in my childhood, it is proving to be the most difficult.

However, there is another area of my life that I am addressing right now that is having a major impact on my health. This is in the area of exercise. Yes, I know, that’s a four letter word in my vocabulary too!!! I have been struggling with exercise for many years. Which is really annoying to have to admit when I remember being the athletic person that I was in school.

I played on my High School’s netball team (UK equivalent of basketball) in each year of school. In several of those years I was the team captain. I was fanatical about netball and just remembering it, I can feel my adrenaline level soaring. We played netball during the winter season, September through March, which meant we played twice a week as part of our class PE program and then the team would also practice once or twice a week after school. Matches were played on Saturdays.

After graduating from school I went on to a teacher’s training college, and sports and gymnastics continued to be part of the regular curriculum. During my second year of college I “went off the rails” and left to get married. A baby came along quickly and my new lifestyle was very alien to anything I had known up until then. Physical activities disappeared from my life.

Many years and a divorce later I attempted to return to some form of exercise. But I only hiccupped along in fits and starts. I tried aerobics but felt very clumsy and because I am not good at multi-tasking I simply did not have the coordination necessary. I tried working with a personal trainer but it proved to be too expensive, so I just gave up.

By now I had remarried and had another baby at age forty and had not been able to rid my body of the baby weight as I had when I was in my twenties. I think this was when I pretty much gave up on myself for a while and simply indulged in eating what I wanted. The weight slowly crept up. I remember pledging with myself that I would never allow myself to go over two hundred pounds. I sat at two hundred for a few years.

About fifteen years ago, while living in Naples, Italy, I met a wonderful yoga instructor and started practicing yoga with her. I loved the asana’s and working with the breathe. Moving slowly into and maintaining the poses under Meredith’s compassionate instruction, I began to feel somewhat reconnected with my body. “Sun salutations” became my passion along with the “fish” pose. My weight diminished some and I felt healthy for the first time in a long time.

Then in 2004 I moved to Jacksonville, Florida and, in hindsight, I realize that it took me about two to three years to make the big transition from my European culture to the American culture. My exercise pattern got lost in the shuffle for quite a while. Every once in a while I would make a half-hearted effort to implement a walking regime. I love being outside and walking puts me close to God’s creation which allows me to exercise my body and my soul. I also found a good Yoga studio and began going regularly again.

Then I had a shoulder problem. Had to quit yoga while I dealt with that and exercise got away from me again. Once the shoulder healed I finally pushed myself back into yoga but shortly after that I had a knee problem. Six months later I tried to get back into yoga again but found that it re-awakened the knee issue so quit. I tried walking again but the knee was just too much of a problem and, again, I found myself at that quitting-on-me stage.

One day at the beginning of this year I got on the scales and realized that my weight had bloomed to two hundred and sixteen pounds. I felt defeated and at an all-time low with myself. I made the decision to try and go raw – again (I had been dabbling with raw for a few years), or at least vegetarian. But underneath I knew that if I didn’t start exercising I would get nowhere fast. However, I simply could not get myself motivated to do it.

I think God took pity on me – again. He has a habit of doing that from time to time and when I get to the end of my rope, he offers me the beginning of His! But, as usual, He has a funny way of doing it. My husband was hospitalized toward the end of February with chest pains. Long story short: no heart problems but he was finally forced to look at high blood pressure and cholesterol issues and the doctors were serious when they told him to make lifestyle changes. Our diet swung drastically to mainly salads, lots of veggies and fruit, and we cut out most of the carbs.

Within a month or two we both lost weight dramatically. Then I hit a plateau and stayed there and got depressed. Underneath I knew the answer was exercise but I just didn’t want to have to deal with it. Again God came to my rescue in His usual round about way, and in July I was introduced to Wendy, a personal Pilates instructor. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to do Pilates because my only knowledge of this form of exercise was a memory of a friend who used to do it (a much fitter, younger woman!!!), and she would say things like “We were massacred at Pilates class tonight” or “I didn’t think I’d make it through the whole class today.”

I am grateful for the God-incidental way that I got to Wendy, for I’m sure I’d never have taken the leap otherwise. She is a compassionate but relentless instructor with a grand sense of humor. I told her where I was at and she said something like “I guess I’ll have to work you”. I have been doing Pilates twice a week with Wendy since about mid-July. I have pushed below my plateau, not a lot but enough. However what has happened to my body is nothing short of a miracle.

I have a level of sustained energy that I did not have before. My body is so much more flexible and feels very alive. There has been a shift in shape; I cannot explain it any clearer than that. The first major change that I noticed was one day when I went to do up the strap on a pair of shoes and realized I did not have to get into a certain position to “accommodate my stomach” as I leaned down! My tummy has definitely toned and my legs are so much more flexible. I can climb a flight of stairs without feeling breathless.

This week Richard and I are enjoying our traditional week of Thanksgiving in our time share in Orlando. Yesterday afternoon we went to Universal to watch the new Harry Potter movie (which was great by the way!). We walked around for a while before the movie and I noticed that I had no problem keeping up with Richard (he’s over six foot and has a long stride). Nor did I find myself getting breathless keeping up with him and, in fact, I felt quite invigorated. Today we went to Sea World and the same thing happened.

As I sit here typing this post I have to make a confession. I have been wanting to walk on a regular basis for about a month now. The reason I have not is because I did not want to feel tired and breathless or realize that I couldn’t keep a decent pace for long. Yesterday and today have shown me that I can get out there, keep a good pace, and feel really good. I know that this is partly because of the diet changes I have made as well as the regular exercising with Pilates. It is a total change of lifestyle that is allowing me to feel good about myself and to feel so much more healthy. This is what self nurturing is truly about.

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Going Raw: Part One

Margo — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 02:38:34 +0000

(My Life-Long Love Affair With Food)

I don’t normally put sub-titles to my postings, but I felt this one deserved one. There is no way I can share my “adventure” at going raw without giving some background as to my relationship with food. And it is a love affair.

I have had an intimate relationship with food ever since I can remember. Some of my earliest memories of food are:

- sitting under the dining room table in the middle of the night eating rice paper (don’t even ask!!)

- sitting for what seemed like hours on the garden gate or at the front room window waiting for Aunty Polly to arrive with ice cream and candy

- going to Aunty Peggy’s to have wonderful four course dinners that included incredible appetizers, cheese and crackers, dessert with coffee (like in a “grown
up’s” restaurant)

- going down to the kid’s secret den to eat as many candies as I had been able to take from the pantry without it looking as though someone had taken them
(I’m sure my mother realized!)

- finger-swiping the frosting off a freshly baked “chocolate horror” cake (bliss!)

- sneaking teaspoonful’s of Fry’s chocolate spread (pure paradise!!)

- biting into the crusty heel of a fresh loaf of country bread slathered in real butter

- English cheddar cheese and crunchy pickled onions

So as you can see I was pretty much addicted to food from an early age. I could describe in detail, and still can, the sensations of different foods hitting the different taste buds in the various areas of my mouth just the way someone can describe the details in a picture. I think God proved that He really, really loved us when he gave us taste buds.

I discovered “ethnic” restaurants in my mid to upper teens and a whole new world of tastes and flavors opened up to me. English food is usually so bland and much of it, particularly vegetables, is simply boiled into oblivion and mush. Indian curry and crisp Chinese vegetables were like heaven, and the awesome blend of herbs in authentic, freshly cooked, Italian cuisine can still send me into a swoon today. I think you get the picture.

Moving to Sardinia, Italy in 1979 was a dream come true for this foodaholic. The Sardinian cuisine is unique and is as beautiful as the island itself. Home-made pasta was the norm in a Sardinian home in those days and if you have never eaten fresh home-made pasta you need to before you die. Roast lamb, kid, and pig are nothing like anything over here. I have eaten some of the best bar-b-q pork since coming to the States but nothing touches a succulent roast-in-the-ground pig in Sardinia.

From Sardinia I returned to London in 1978. It was mainly a “big mistake” but forms part of my life journey so it was important. During the five years I remained in the UK back then the only time that I ate well was when I cooked Italian pasta or I ate ethnic. I missed Italy badly, not just the food but the whole culture. So it was with a happy heart that I returned in 1983 to live in Naples, Italy.

Naples, rather like Sicily, gets a bad rap in some tourist books, but I fell in love with Naples very quickly. There’s an Italian saying that goes, “see Naples and die”. There’s a Neapolitan saying that goes, “Napoli ti prende per la gola” – Naples grabs you by the throat. The people are warm-hearted and friendly and the food, well I’m not sure anything I could say about Neapolitan food would do it justice. There are amazing pasta dishes with incredible sauces and fresh seafood cooked in the simplest but most divinely-tasting ways. “Dolce” (cakes) are out of this world and the pizza, oh the pizza!!!!! You have not eaten real pizza until you eat pizza prepared and baked in Naples. Not even the pizza in other parts of Italy is as sublime as Neapolitan pizza.

And then there’s REAL mozzarella cheese freshly dripping in its own liquid. This is an absolute delicacy that is only made in Naples, Italy. There is only one place over here that I know of where you can find real, fresh Mozzarella cheese and that is at the Fratelli La Buffala restaurant in the beaches area of Miami. They have it flown in fresh from Naples two or three times per week.

So, with all this love of marvelously prepared and served food, how do I get to going raw? With great difficulty let me tell you! I guess with age comes some sort of wisdom, and my brain began to tell my body that two hundred pounds on a five foot four inch frame was not so healthy. And, as usually happens with the fat accumulation, my blood pressure had risen and my cholesterol was fast following it.

Thankfully, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. Back in 2005, about eighteen months after getting to Jacksonville, Florida, my church hosted a series of classes on the vegetarian diet. I was interested not only because I thought it would help me lose weight, combat the BP and cholesterol issue, and improve my overall wellness, but also because the classes were offered by the Cancer Society as a way to help people prevent cancer or live cancer free once they were in remission. Because there is a history of cancer in my family I decided it was time to take the bull by the horns.

I’ll leave the “vegetarian experiment” for my next posting in this series.

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Poetry: Greek God on a Tube Train

Margo — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 05:33:49 +0000

As mentioned in my previous posting, Musings- Creativity and Cold! here is the poem that I wrote in September 1980. Perhaps I should set the stage a little. I had returned to live in England in October 1978 having lived the previous ten years of my life on the beautiful island of Sardinia. Sardinia is located about forty minutes flying time due west of Rome in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. It is an Italian island.

The weather there is fantastic. Hot and sunny from mid-May through to mid-September. Delightfully warm and sunny from mid-March through to mid-May and again from mid-September through to the end of November. There are a few exceptions to these time lines but they are just that, exceptions. Winter lasts from December till mid March but is not so cold as to be brutal, nor is it so rainy as to be continuously miserable. I remember sunbathing many times in January and February.

So to adjust to England’s climate when I returned to the UK in late 1978 was difficult to say the least. The culture and way of life was also problematic and frequently I found myself spiraling downwards on the emotional level as I tried to stay positive and live up to my nick-name – Sunny!! One day as I sat on the underground train going to work I was struck by my sense of isolation and felt myself being swallowed up by and absorbed into a daily “grayness”.

Each person in my carriage was totally closed in on themselves. Nobody looked at anybody else. It was as though each one of them was enclosed in one of those glass domes that are used to protect special dolls or statues. I found myself reacting to this by going in on myself – under my own glass dome. But suddenly there was a moment of “aliveness” which brought me back into my real self. The following poem describes that incident.

GREEK GOD ON A TUBE TRAIN

Somber blue, black and gray pinstripes
Seated in uniform regularity
The full length of the carriage,
Like regimental toy soldiers on an assembly line
Waiting to be dispatched, briefcase in hand,
To equally somber banks.
Dead-pan, pallid faces devoid of emotion,
Set above their city suits.
Bored, I stare ahead, merging into the nothingness
That surrounds me.
The train stops, doors open and close,
And suddenly my eyes are shocked wide open
By a non-conformity in this sea of gray monotony.
There he sits, or rather lounges,
A healthy sun-tanned lean Greek god,
In indolent disarray.
Tight jeans mould to his masculinity,
And he wears an open neck shirt from which spills
A heavy gold chain nestling in luxurious hair.
His dark and heavy-lidded eyes smolder
As they roam lazily over my femininity,
And I welcome his bold male gaze in the midst of such insipidness.

London, 24 September 1980

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Musings: Creativity and Cold!

Margo — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 17:13:18 +0000

It has been very cold, at least by Florida standards it’s been cold. Since Christmas Day the thermometer on my sheltered lanai has been registering somewhere between 44F and 48F degrees at about 7.30am. That’s the latest time that I usually get out there for my morning quiet time. So there have actually been a couple of mornings that, even bundled up in flannel PJ’s with a warm sweater and my cozy wrap blanket, it was too cold to enjoy my quiet time outside.

I do not “do cold” very well, although if the sun is shining I can certainly handle it better than if the weather is also gray and miserable or raining. I spent the first twenty five years of my life in London, England before moving to live in Italy. After experiencing warm weather and sunshine for most of the year for many years I have not tolerated cold or gray very well since then.

My experience has also been that warmth and sunshine affects the population and the whole culture and way of life of said population. The English are well know for their “stiff upper lip” and their reservation of character, which can often be taken as a form of stand offishness. They tend to keep themselves to themselves and this tends to lead other nationalities to think of them as “unfriendly”.

Travelling on the London underground train service or in the characteristic red double-deck buses of London City, you will meet a sea of stony faces and solid silence. When I lived and worked there I would definitely feel dismal and gray inside my soul by the end of the working week. I had to put a lot of energy into getting back into my up beat mode over the weekend. In another posting I will share a poem that I wrote about this when I lived in London back in the early eighties.

But, get on a train or a bus in Italy and there is animation, the noise of many conversations and much gesticulating and laughter. In fact, you will usually be drawn into whatever conversation is going on next to you as people turn round to include you. I guess that would be a good way of describing life in Italy – inclusive. People want you in their lives and they want to be part of your life too.

And then in Italy there is so much colour. People dress colourfully and with great pizzazz. People talk colourfully, with their hands and facial expressions as well as with their voices. Houses are colourful, especially in the south or on the many islands dotted along the long coastline of this peninsula country. It is not abnormal to find many shades of green, blue, pink, ochre, and yellow along the street and in “parco’s” (what we would refer to as sub-divisions here in America). And on top of everything the sun shines – a lot:-). It is very easy to stay happy and up beat in such a climate and environment.

So, back to days of cold here in Florida. I have been somewhat house-closeted and have not been able to spend much time outside in my lanai. And this has affected my ability to write, to let the Muse have her way with me. I did go to my computer a couple of times with the intention of writing, but being stuck in doors gets me feeling stuck in my heart and head and the words just would not flow.

Even though it is somewhat grey today (we have even had a little rain), the thermometer is registering 66F degrees and I can comfortably sit outside. I am once again surrounded by God-given nature and I breath real fresh air. It’s almost as though the oxygen releases my thought processes and I feel the ideas begin to run around in my head. Heating and air conditioned air just block my creative juices. I am grateful for warmer weather that allows the Muse to come out and play.

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Spiritual Growth: Thoughts On God

Margo — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:00:00 +0000

Many years ago I attended a CREDO Team Building Retreat in Naples, Italy. At some point during the retreat, the chaplain who was leading us read the following quotation:

“The meaning of life is listening to Pavarotti, feeling the sun on your face, drinking a bottle of wine, and then another. The meaning of life is having a safe and healthy society, a happy family life, good health, a loving wife (husband), work that you like, smelling the smell of a new car and the ocean air, being able to hit a bull’s eye, coming home with the fish and not another fish story.”

Carmine Pucci
(Butcher)

That’s right, he was an Italian butcher and these words of his struck a chord deep in my heart. They resonated clearly within my soul. It’s the kind of down-to-earth philosophy/spirituality that brings me home – to myself and to my God.

As I read these words again today I am transported to my beloved Italy where everything is experienced in the moment. The senses are so alive in the Italian culture and emotions are right there, on the surface of the skin. Italians most definitely have a passion about everything they do. Even the most mundane thing is appreciated to the core.

So as I allow a wave of Italian nostalgia to sweep over me, and as I reread Carmine’s words, here are some God thoughts that come swimming to the surface.

See the golden sunrise and the blood red sunset spreading their beauty over creation, and you see God.
Smell the intoxicating perfume of jasmine and honeysuckle, or the aroma of freshly baked bread, and you smell God.
Touch a baby’s cheek with the tip of your nose, or kiss the soft folds of skin on the back of his neck, and you touch God.
Taste the exquisite flavor of a piece of chocolate, or a forkful of fresh home-made Italian pasta or exotic Indian curry, and you taste God.
Hear the song of the blackbird in the evening dusk, or the crescendo of a full concert orchestra, or the whisper of a soft summer wave on the shore, and you hear God.

Amen!!

It’s amazing all the people, places, and situations where I find God. Where I can meet him head on in my day. Right now as I sit in my Florida lanai, I can hear the wind sighing strongly through the pine woods behind my home, and I hear God. The wind is picking up as we experience the outer reaches of tropical storm Ida, and the various wind chimes around my garden are tinkling and I think of heaven, and cherubs, and God.

My cat, Mokka, lies peacefully sleeping on a chair beside me curled into a perfect circle, her body rising and falling gently with each breath she takes. She is a perfect example of God’s creative powers. And the tantalizing aroma of fresh made curried lentil and vegetable soup is wafting through the sliding doors and I am reminded of ……………… my humanity and the fact that I’m hungry and it’s time for dinner!!

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Musings: The Evasive Muse

Margo — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:47:31 +0000

I haven’t written anything for about a week now. I guess it would be truer to say that I have not been able to write anything during this time. Some people call this “writer’s block”. I like to think that my Muse needs a rest or a vacation now and then.

There are several different schools of thought on this matter. There are those who think that if you are a writer (or painter, or any other type of creative person), you should just blast through the block, force yourself to write something (or paint, or whatever), get something going. Others think that this is not natural and that if the creativity doesn’t flow, then leave it alone.

I happen to be of the second opinion. Even though it is frustrating for me to come to the end of a day with itchy fingers but nothing running around in my head, my heart, or my soul, I think it is right (for me) to wait until the Muse decides to come home from her vacation, opens her suitcases, and spills out whatever treasures she brings home to share with me.

I guess I need to clarify here that it’s not that my mind has been totally blank. I know I still have a writing to do about the glorious Cowboys game that we experienced in Tampa a few weeks ago (even though they weren’t so glorious against Denver last weekend!). To be noted that there’s another posting about “mentors” that’s creating waves in my heart. And my soul is contentedly nurturing a whole juicy article abut Zhanra’s, a restaurant in St. Augustine that is fast becoming my favorite Sunday brunch spot.

What happens for me, I think, is that my Muse needs head, heart, and soul lined up in some sort of synchronicity. They all need to be on the same page (no pun intended!), singing along in harmonious arcapella. And then, of course, I have that devious little fellow, de-pression, who hovers out in left field waiting to strike me out.

Yesterday, however, Rich and I drove up to north western Georgia with some friends. We are sharing a weekend with them in a gorgeous log cabin in the mountains. My heart and soul are both jumping for joy and sitting in serenity. Just to be in the mountains after living in the Florid flatlands is a gift from God. My soul is very connected to rocks and mountains.

As well as the mountains, we are also surrounded by woodlands that are made up of more than pine trees. (Trees are the next soul connection after mountains for me.) It is early Fall and the colors are creeping into the leaves. As I look out over the wrap-around porch that I am sitting on there are lovely shades of yellow and bronze with some soft deep pinks and russet reds here and there.

Just below the cabin there is a small lake and to one side of us I can hear the running waters of a creek that feeds into the lake. Birds are singing all around us and the squirrels are having such fun scampering up and down and in and out of the trees. From where I am sitting I can see three large squirrel nests.

As the evening closed in yesterday we lit a log fire in the outdoor fireplace on the porch. The night was still, the fire crackled, and all around us were the sounds of the night. Crickets and other insects formed the string section of the orchestra. Various frogs tuned up their woodwind instruments, and some unknown creature of the dark provided a strange soft trilling sound.

When the sky darkened into full night we were treated to a magnificent starry display. We are far from any major town so city lights did not spoil the effect of God’s night-time creation. As we gazed up we realized we were seeing the Milky Way and there were a gazillion other stars up there. I saw three shooting stars, one that was big and bright and seemed to cross the whole heavens on its journey to extinction. And I was reminded of another night, another starry sky in Umbria, Italy many years ago.

And as I sat and bathed in the beauty of it all, I felt a subtle internal shift. I knew that Muse was on her way home and that soon my itchy fingers would be flying across the keyboard. I am grateful for her return and, as if to confirm her presence with me right now, a watery sun is dappling through the trees to bathe me in a soft morning glow.

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Poetry: Words Painting Pictures

Margo — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 02:14:32 +0000

Words have always fascinated me. The way they march across a page creating people, places, and life stories, or laying down facts and information, excites me to the core. I curl up with pleasure at the sight or sound of certain words while others have the power to chill me to the bone.

Words can be kind and compassionate, soft and gentle. Words can cause love or anger to burst forth in an eruption of passion more impressive than the best orchestrated firework display. They can soothe the soul and warm the heart or they can cut sharper than any well honed knife.

Words light up my own imagination and set my soul on fire. Perhaps for this reason I am always reading. As I already mentioned in my previous posting Musings- Relationships, I devoured books as I child. In elementary school they couldn’t keep enough books on the classroom library shelves for me.

Even poetry pleased me from an early age. Perhaps that is why I began writing my own poetry as I emerged from my painful “past life”. In High School, perhaps my sophomore or junior year, we held a poetry reading contest. One of my class mates, Mary Griswell, read a poem called Snake written by the somewhat controversial author D.H. Lawrence.

I was mesmerized by the second line. I was there, a few yards from the water-trough, in my own pajamas and I could feel the heat all around me. As the poem unfolded I was transported to this hot place in Italy (strange that it was in my beloved Italy!), and I could see the snake, his colors, the texture of his skin, and the slow movement of his body. Let me share the poem with you.

Snake

A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.

In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before
me.

He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of
the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.

Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second comer, waiting.

He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.

And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.

But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?

Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.

And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!

And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.

He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.

And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.

I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

I think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste.
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.

And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.

And I thought of the albatross
And I wished he would come back, my snake.

For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.

And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.

Taormina, 1923

This poem made such an impression on my heart and mind that some years later I was inspired to make a pen and ink drawing of the snake. It sits in my dining room to this day. Whenever I look at it I can picture Mary in the library of the Ursuline High School, and if I close my eyes I can still hear her reciting the poem.

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Italy: My Soul Home

Margo — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 12:08:00 +0000

I have lived for about thirty years in Italy. The very first visit to that country was to Genoa in December 1963. All I can say is that when I deplaned and my feet touched the tarmac, my soul came home.

I eventually came to live in Italy in 1969. My first home was in a place called Santa Margherita di Pula located in the southern region of the island of Sardinia. This island captured my heart. The sea is turquoise, the beaches are pristine, the rocks are unbelievable, the people are delightful, and the food is incredibly good.

The last four and a half years of my time in Sardinia were spent on the island of La Maddalena. If Sardinia was said to be the crown of Italy, La Maddalena would be the diamond sparkling in that crown. In my post Poetry- Sharing My Love of Sardinia I already described this beautiful island and shared one poem that I wrote in nostalgia after I left. Here is another poem that I wrote during the course of a revisit.

La Maddalena

Hot air hanging languidly in a shimmering haze.
Warm brown bodies proffered to the sun,
Splayed on molten sand.
Still waters reflecting glistening gems
Of cool coral edged with mother-of-pearl
Mirrored under translucent turquoise.
Oh island of my heart, my soul, my mind,
Resplendent as a queen you proudly lie
Royally robed in colors warm and bright.
Your elegant form bedecked with dazzling jewels
Enchanting all who dare to gaze upon you,
By nature so generously endowed.
Sept. 1980

In sharp contrast is the city of Naples. I returned to live in Italy after spending five years back in the UK, and by God-incidence I ended up in Naples. Naples is a wild and chaotic city that lives by its own rules, as do the Neapolitans! It is a city of wide contradictions and immense fascination. There is a saying that goes, “See Naples and die”, meaning that nothing counts after experiencing Naples.

In my previous post Poetry- The Urchin From Naples, I gave some personal insights into this crazy and wonderful city as well as sharing a poem that I wrote before I ever physically visited there. The following poem describes how I felt about it after being there just one week. Naples had “grabbed me by the throat” (this is what the locals say about the effect their city has on some people!l).

Napoli!

Faded ochre, dirty rose,
Clothed in webs of ivy green
Spattered with dust.
Crooked cracks, crusted crannies
Creeping in all directions
On ancient walls.
Cars, trams,
Buses, coaches,
Trucks, prams,
Vans, Bikes,
Carts, Horses
In bright profusion.
Bells, shouts,
Whistles, screams,
Laughter, clouts,
Sirens, blasts,
Voices, horns,
In loud confusion.
Napoli…………
City of love and painted passion,
Full of life and sight and sound,
City of song and laughter.
The dust may cling and spread around,
Crimes may take place each day, all day,
But you are throbbing, alive, and gay.
You are a heartbeat unto yourself.
And as you spawn your hopes, your fears
Into your maddening noises streets
You live!!
Napoli…………
July 1982

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Vignettes: Signor Ludovic’s Story

Margo — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:05:25 +0000

I practiced as a massage therapist in Italy for about seven years. I came to Signor Ludovic via a local parish priest, Don Rafaele. My husband and I would occasionally go to the little Italian church for Mass and Don Rafaele told the story of Signor Ludovic to illustrate the gospel story in his sermon one Sunday.

Signor Ludovic was a Local farmer, a man of the earth with no formal education. He had worked the land all his life and raised eight children. Suddenly, at age seventy, he suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed and confined to a wheel chair. His whole reason for living, working the land, was taken from him. He spent all his days moaning his lot and railing against God “for what He has done to me”.

At the end of Mass I got up fully intending to leave the church and go home, and instead went and spoke to Don Rafaele. Before I knew it I had volunteered to give massage to Signor Ludovic if he and his family would like that and if his doctor said it would be all right. Several weeks later I found myself in my car with Don Rafaele, massage table, linens and lotions in the back, driving to Signor Ludovic’s home.

When we arrived Signor Ludovic was asleep in his wheelchair on the patio. He was unshaven and somewhat unkempt and he drooled in his sleep. I began to wonder what on earth I had gotten myself into and raised a prayer to God asking for His help to do what I could to bring some comfort, some release to this man. And so in April 1999 began a year long relationship that was to bring me many gifts and blessings.

Michele, Signor Ludovic’s son was very badly physically deformed and because he could not work outside the home, to him had fallen the role of caregiver to his father. He would undress him and help me get him on the massage table and when it was time he would help me turn him over. Initially Signor Ludovic said very little to me and would just stare at me in disbelief as I massaged him. I don’t think they knew how to take this purple-haired woman who had appeared out of the blue to offer this service.

Signor Ludovic wanted to pay me after the first massage (he was very proud), and I refused explaining that massage was a gift that I had received from God and that I wanted to share it with him. He cried and just hung on to my hand. I made arrangements to return the following week and once a week thereafter. Each week he would ask to pay and I would say no and continue to repeat that it was my gift to share.

It was about the fourth week, and after we had dressed him and put him in his chair, he crooked his finger at me and with a sly smile told me, “today I am going to pay you”. I began to refuse, but he ignored me and said something in local dialect to Michele who went into an adjoining room. He came back a moment later carrying a bulging plastic bag full of fresh picked green beans. With a big toothless grin Signor Ludovic said, “It’s a gift I’m sharing with you.” And so it went from week to week, whatever was in season and producing on their land, I would receive a bagful freshly picked that morning.

As time went by Signor Ludovic built up trust with me and told me about his wife who had died several years earlier. He told me how he had built the house he lived in with his own hands and how all he longed to do was return to the land. He frequently asked me why I came to him every week and I always told him, “it’s a gift from God that I want to share with you”.

His son Michele told me how his father no longer complained about his lot in life and was much happier to be around. He said that before I began coming to him, his father would break into uncontrollable sobbing several times a day and that now he rarely cried. He also said that the rest of the family enjoyed being around him more now too. Signor Ludovic told me that his legs felt less “heavy” now and that his back hurt him less and, like a true Italian, he also started to flirt with me a little!!

The weeks that Don Rafaele came to visit and sit and pray while I did the massage, he would talk to me afterwards and reiterated what Michele told me. He also marveled at the fact that he was being given the opportunity to see how the healing powers of God worked in many different ways – even through the hands of a purple-haired massage therapist!

But for me the most amazing part of the relationship with Signor Ludovic was the unspoken friendship that we enjoyed. He was able to communicate so much through his eyes, and the biggest gift he gave me was his pure gratitude and the total feeling of satisfaction that he received from the massage. His eyes would frequently seek out mine during the massage and he would either be saying “thank you” or “oh that feels so good” or “you’re here again – how amazing!”.

I also came to realize that he was giving me an awesome gift in the shape of a mental and spiritual healing with my father. I would frequently think of Dad as I massaged Signor Ludovic, and I was able to come to a place of peace and forgiveness with him for never having said “I love you” to me when he was alive. It seemed as though Signor Ludovic was saying it on his behalf. This was a huge blessing for me.

In February 2000, Signor Ludovic suffered a second stroke which increased the paralysis and robbed him of his speech. I would go and sit with him, place my hands softly on his head and hold him then massage his Hands, one of which was now totally seized up. He would grab my hand with his good hand and carry it to his lips, drool and all, and just hold it there. I saw the life ebbing slowly out of him so began visiting almost every day. His eyes had become rheumy and glazed as though he were absent.

I last saw Signor Ludovic alive in the afternoon of Friday 31 March 2000. He had not eaten for about eight or nine days and was very weak. He was sitting propped up in his chair. There were several members of his family around him. I sat with him and took his feeling hand which he immediately carried to his lips. When it was time for me to leave, I told him I was going out of town for the weekend and would not see him until Monday.

His eyes suddenly cleared and he focused them fiercely into mine and I knew instinctively that he wanted to “tell me” something. I gazed back intently into his eyes and “heard” him tell me that he needed to go. I could not speak out loud, so focused back and “told” him that he should do what he needed to do for himself and thanked him for his presence in my life. He kissed my hand and I leaned over and kissed his cheek and whispered “arrivederci” in his ear.

At 6am on Monday 3 April 2000, before I could get to visit him again, Signor Ludovic passed away. I have thought of him frequently over the years and am truly grateful for the gift of our special relationship, for the joy that he brought into my life, and for the quantum leap in the lesson of compassion that he gave me .

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Poetry: The Urchin From Naples

Margo — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 10:56:00 +0000

My first visit to Naples, Italy took place in the summer of 1982, with consequent visits at Christmas in the same year and then at Easter of 1983. I eventually travelled to live in Naples on 1 July 1983. However, I had already “visited” Naples through a book that I read in early 1981. The title of the book was Children of the Sun – The Slum Dwellers of Naples, and it was written by Morris West.

I was taking a year-long night school class at the time and was looking for an end-of-year project to present as my final paper. The book not only gave me the subject for my project, but also had such a profound effect on me that it had great influence on my decision to live in Naples when I returned to Italy a few years later. (I highly recommend reading this book if you are going to visit Naples, Italy.)

The following poem was inspired by the book and became an integral part of the paper that I presented at school.

The Urchin From Naples

Don’t push me aside Mr. Tourist

When leaving your five-star hotel,

I may be all dirty and tattered,

But I have my self-pride as well.

Don’t look down your nose when you see me,

With hand reaching out for a dime.

I’m a person with senses and feelings

In spite of my face full of grime.

I come from a family of seven,

And worked from the ripe age of five.

School didn’t exist for an earner

Who could help keep the family alive.

My mother was busy with babies,

My father was touting for bread,

M sisters were selling their bodies

To make sure we all had a bed.

And so from this ‘home’ I escaped,

To fend for myself all alone,

In the back streets of Naples I wander,

At least what I earn is my own.

I see that you ask why I did this,

Chose my roof as the sky up above?

It’s not just my belly got hungry,

My heart too was starving for love.

At home I was forced into manhood

Before I was ever a child,

My innocence now has long left me,

Broken and wounded – defiled.

But I too must live Mr. Tourist,

So if I am forced to ask alms,

Then give without making me wheedle,

Don’t leave me with cold empty palms.

And when you go home to your children

And hold them within your embrace,

Remember this urchin from Naples

Has feelings as well as a face.

March, 1981

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My Italian Roots

Margo — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:16:49 +0000

Since posting the poem “Island Voices” about a week ago, and “Full Moon Rise” yesterday, my Italian soul has been clamoring for attention. So I think I’m going to have to open up a new topic under the label “Italy”. So much of my life experience has been savored in that country, and so much of my soul resides there even when I live elsewhere, that it seems the right thing to do.

Some may wonder if I feel somewhat fragmented because of my ongoing attachment to Italy, but for me it is not so. Italy has been a part of me since before I was born, even though I was raised as a one hundred-percent British girl. There has always been the “Italian connection”.

You see my grandmother, my mother’s mother, was Italian. Her name was Maria Vittoria Jaconelli. I do not know her history, however, I believe it was her mother and father who came over from Italy to live in Scotland. But I do have a coat of arms for the Jaconelli family hanging in my living room full of much italicized flourishes, emblazoned in red, silver, and gold, with a crowned, armor-helmeted head and a very stylized lion brandishing a sword. Extremely impressive!!

My mother was just six years old when Maria Vittoria died following the birth of her last child, my Uncle John. I’m not sure where all the children were born, I think a period of time was spent in Ireland which is where my grandfather was from, but they were mainly raised in Scotland. My mother eventually came down to London where she met and married her very English husband, my Dad, and my siblings and I were all born and raised in London.

So even as I attended schools in the London area and grew up in the times of Mary Quant and the mini skirt (I’m really aging myself here!), the Monkees, Mods and Rockers, Beatniks, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, the Italian connection always hovered on the edge of my awareness. I knew we had Italian relatives who lived in northern England and on the Isle of White, but they seemed like some exotic distant part of the family.

As a teenager I lived “with my head in the clouds” (one of my mother’s favorite expressions when talking of me), and I was a full blown dreamer, a romanticist who was always looking to be different. Consequently I met and married (against said mother’s wishes – she was right by the way!) an Italian. This did get me my first visit to Italy and that very first experience of “Ah, I’m home”.

Much water has gone under the proverbial bridge since then. I do have two stupendous sons from that ill-fated marriage, Marco and Giulio. They are proof positive of the truth in that old saying “something good always comes out of something bad”. It was Giulio’s wedding that we celebrated in Aviano last month.

As I have mentioned before, I lived almost half of my life in Italy. I spent ten years on the beautiful island of Sardinia, before going back to live in the UK for five years. I returned to Italy in 1983 and lived in Naples where I met my present husband, Richard. We married and two years later moved a little further north along the coast to Gaeta for three years before being transferred to Norfolk, Virginia in the United States. We were given the opportunity to return to Naples, Italy in 1991 and there we remained until January 2004.

So it is understandable that so much of my life experience has been garnered in Italy. Italian blood runs in my veins and cannot be denied. And I have most definitely been influenced by the Italian people and their culture and made it part of the way I live my life today – especially in the kitchen!!

And here we are at the end of another posting. The original title for this was “Poetry: From Naples” and I had intended to do a paragraph or two of introduction/background. By the end of the third paragraph I realized my heart was going in a slightly different direction and was not to be stopped. Ah well, there’s always another day.

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Poetry: An Italian View

Margo — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:46:37 +0000

I lived for many years in Italy – almost half my life actually. So much of my life experience is based on those years. To say that I love Italy is putting it mildly. Italy is my “soul home”. It is where I feel most at home. It is the place that when I arrive there I feel that internal soft sigh and a voice that says, “Ah, I’m home.”

I think the creative Muse was awakened in me during all those years. Or perhaps it would be more truthful to say she was re-awakened. It was during those years that I went back to painting for the first time since my teens, and it was in Italy that I began to write poetry.

Ten of those years were spent on the island of Sardinia. It was actually on a return visit to Sardinia,to the southern part of the island, near the capital of Cagliari, that I had an incredible experience one evening sitting on a beach at Santa Margherita di Pula. It was a dark yet star-studded night and the water was calm and still, like sheet glass. And then I was gifted to see a full moon rise, and this is what I wrote when I went home that night.

Full Moon Rise

It must have been an invitation such as this,

That sent Columbus round the world.

He must have stood upon the shore one summer’s eve

To watch the gentle waves unfurled.

And as he gazed into the dark and distant night,

An orange glow appeared to East.

With bated breathe he sat to watch the shadowy sky,

Yet ignorant of the coming feast.

Amidst that mellow, musky haze where sky meets sea,

There blossomed forth an amber bloom,

A perfect sphere that seemed to hang suspended there

As ripe as woman’s fertile womb.

Then slowly, inch by inch, it left horizon’s line

And started on a slow ascent

Into the violet, velvet dark of August’s night,

Toward the West it leant.

And as it carefully cleaved a path among the stars,

The amber ball to yellow paled,

But t’was a brilliant pallor, clear and lemon-bright,

The splendid, sparkling stars it veiled.

Upward it arched, the heavens high to reign,

While o’er the seas its light was spread,

Like myriads of dancing diamonds on the waves below,

Connected to a single thread.

A wondrous, silver, shimmering street across the sea,

The gate to worlds yet unexplored.

All this Columbus must have seen one summer’s eve,

The morn his sails to set abroad.

August 1982

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